Anselm Desing

Anselm Desing, portrait from around 1770

Anselm Desing (born March 15, 1699 in Amberg , † December 17, 1772 in Ensdorf ) was a Catholic philosopher, historian and educator.

After attending the Jesuit grammar school in Amberg and studying philosophy in Vienna , he entered the Benedictine monastery in Ensdorf in 1717 and began to teach history and geography, some of which he wrote the lesson books and maps himself. In his historical work he orientated himself on the sources, here influenced by his friars Meichelbeck and Mabillon .

After teaching at the grammar school in Freising (1725 to 1737), he received his doctorate in philosophy in Salzburg and began teaching poetry at the Benedictine University there. His subjects included mathematics , history and ethics in addition to poetry . In 1743 he gave up the professorship after violent hostility because of his criticism of scholasticism . Plans for an aristocratic academy in Vienna came to nothing, he withdrew to Kremsmünster , but without giving up his educational work. The construction of the Kremsmünster observatory , a tower for astronomical research, went back to him.

In 1750 he used a trip to Rome for scientific work. In 1759 Desing became a full member of the newly founded Bavarian Academy of Sciences ; In 1761 he was elected Abbot of Ensdorf, where he worked until his death.

Works

La questione se le ricchezze del clero nocevoli sieno alla repubblica ( Opes sacerdotii num reipublicae noxiae? ), 1768

• Institutiones styli historici , Augusburgo, 1772, at 8º
• Methodus contracta historiae , Amberg, 1725, in folio
• Diatribe circa methodum Wolffianum, in philosophia practica universali, hoc est in principiis juris naturae statuendis adhibitam, quam non essemethodum, necesse scientificam, ostenditur , 1752.
• Opes sacerdotii num reipublicae noxiae? ( la ) 1753.
  • La questione se le ricchezze del clero nocevoli sieno alla repubblica ( it ). Giovanni Antonio Coatti, Ferrara 1768.
• General, detailed imperial history , compiled from the latest up to our times , 1741.

literature

• Manfred Knedlik, Georg Schrott (eds.): Anselm Desing (1699–1772). A Benedictine polymath in the Age of Enlightenment . Verlag Laßleben, Kallmünz 1999, ISBN 3-7847-1167-7 .
• Ildefons Stegmann: Anselm Desing, Abbot of Ensdorf (1699-1772). A contribution to the history of the Enlightenment in Bavaria . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1929.
• Ildefons Stegmann:  Desing, Anselm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 614 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Karl Werner:  Desing, Anselm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 73 f.

Web links

Wikisource: Anselm Desing  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Anselm Desing in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website Anselm Desing-Verein